


All I Can Defend

by WindyWordz



Series: This is Gospel [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I think I did a shit job but here ya go, I'm not really going in here with a plan, Keith/Lance (Voltron) Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, POV Keith (Voltron), bear with me, even I'm going out of my comfort zone to write this, graphic depictions of violence blood and gore, keith gets fucked up man, klance, lance is going ballistic about it, lance is too OOC imo but hey i tried, maybe romantic confessions on your deathbed?, near-fatal injury, self-indulgent hurt/comfort, seriously if you're squeamish then don't read this, trying to get Keith's character down, typical near-fatal injury and freaking the team out thing, who knows man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-08
Updated: 2016-10-08
Packaged: 2018-08-20 04:44:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8236514
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WindyWordz/pseuds/WindyWordz
Summary: There was something about Mondays that always sucked, no matter how far away from Earth you were. If Pidge's digital calendar was correct, today is, in fact, a Monday, about two years after their initial rise as Voltron Paladins. So when the alarms start going off while he's having his morning goo, spoon halfway to his mouth and hanging dangerously loose in his tired hand, Keith knows he's going to have a rough day. "God, I hate Mondays."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Alternatively titled: In which Keith gets fkkn wrekt to high heavens and Lance is taking it harder than he admits.

There was something about Mondays that always sucked, no matter how far away from Earth you were. If Pidge's digital calendar was correct, today is, in fact, a Monday, about two years after their initial rise as Voltron Paladins. So when the alarms start going off while he's having his morning goo, spoon halfway to his mouth and hanging dangerously loose in his tired hand, Keith knows he's going to have a rough day.

"God, I hate Mondays."

But he's down the hall before his spoon hits the floor, bowl of goop abandoned on the table.

"Paladins!" Allura is shouting over the comms, which means she's already in the command room. "A small Galra fleet has intercepted us. You must make haste to the lions and push them back so we can escape with a wormhole!"

"Allura!" Keith puts on his helmet just in time to hear Shrio calling back, his voice steady. "How many are there?"

"No more than a dozen fleet ships and thrice that many fighter ships.

"We shouldn't need Voltron, then," Pidge states, matter-of-factly. Keith can practically hear them pushing their glasses up as they always do.

Shiro's reply is swift and certain, and Keith feels what little anxiety he had from rushing into action at such short notice melt away, "No, but stay close together just in case!"It's a shared thought as they all blast out of their hangers shortly after, lion's roaring. 

Lazers are everywhere, and the lights in the sky are no longer  distant stars, but energy blasts from smaller fighter ships as they speed towards the paladins. They're scattered, but each know what they're doing, sending reassuring vibes through their strong mental connections. Pidge is firing shots at the fleet ships from a distance while Hunk and Shiro are openly attacking them. Lance is picking off the fighter planes with skillful precision, leaving a trail of little red explosions around him. Keith is doing what Keith does best, and that's taking on whatever has the nerve to fly close to him or his long-range attacking team mates.

"Keith!" Lance shouts, his volume nearly piecing Keith's eardrum through the headset, and his adrenaline is temporarily channeled through the words, "Three already!"

Oh, that's nothing. "I'm on seventeen!"

"Wha-!" Keith wants to laugh at the choked word, and Lance quickly recovers with a challenge. "I'm not letting some mullet-head beat me!"

He and Lance are screaming their counts at each other, and he hears Lance give his familiar "Whoo-hoo~!"' as he flies through space. It makes Keith smirk and Pidge grumbles something into the intercoms that no one really catches, but the mixed feeling of irritation and elation coming from them is discernible enough.

The battle is easily turning in their favor, with the Castle of Lions firing ion blasts at the larger ships every few minutes.

And then Keith sees it. 

He's avoiding a fighter plane, doing a forward roll as he catches it in his mouth and crushes it with a sharp explosion, and when his visuals point down, His stomach drops with it.

There, under the ensuing battle, is an absolutely  _massive_ battle ship, cloaked by the distracting fleet which is nearly spent. It's canon is pointed straight at the castle, already almost fully charged

Suddenly there's no time. Suddenly he's lost count of how many ships he's taken down. Suddenly he can't hear anything over the impending doom hanging below them.

Suddenly Keith's breaking formation at breakneck speed, flying between the castle and the battle ships's ion canon.

"Keith, what are yo-" He hears Pidge for a second before he's shouting to his lion.

"Red! Shield's up,  _now!_ "

Everything slows.

He can see the blue shield filter over him, encircling him and his lion in a protective particle barrier in less than a second. He can see the explosions out of the corner of his visual screen, Lance turning his lion around a second too slow. He feels a bead of sweat drip down his cheek and trace along his jaw, tingling the skin the entire way down before it releases its hold on him. He hears someone shout his name. He knows the ion canon fires.

He feels the blast before he hears it, slamming into the shield, which turns into a flaming ball of fire. It breaks down after about two seconds, but manages to buffer about half the blast. That's the good news, at least. The bad news is that there's suddenly heat everywhere, his screens all frizzing out at once, some of them splitting into cracks or flat out shattering, switching off. A pipe breaks and steam explodes into the room, searing hot and thick. Keith's unfortunately knocked out of his chair, his safety harness malfunctioning from the impact. He feels himself go flying, pain spiking through his head, arm, and shoulder, followed by a burning sensation that seems to melt his very skin wraps around his neck and right side. He can't tell if the screaming is him or his headset, he just knows that it's a fact that screaming is a thing that is happening. Lights are blaring with alarms and the lights all flicker off. Red drops from his consciousness as he loses his grip on it as well, and everything fades to grey, smokey darkness.

***

He's slow to come to consciousness. It's like pulling a heavy cart through the mud during a rainstorm. His skull is throbbing and his body feels too light in his armor. He tries to pick out little details to expand his knowledge of the world around him. He can see a distant light flashing inconsistently through cracked eyelids. Some kinds of high-frequency buzzing in his ears that is slowly dying down. He's no longer sitting, but lying on the floor, and he makes a wild guess that he's somewhere between his chair and the dashboard. Everything else is hazy and grey, and he blinks ever so slowly to clear his vision, but it stays that way. Keith realizes that it's not his eyes that are the problem. The room is filled with smoke, so much so that the alarms going off are a fuzzy orange than an alerting red. He wants to go back to bed.

But something is prodding at him to come back, to keep swimming to the surface, and he vaguely recognizes the weak presence as Red. He hears something in the distance, and it slowly gets closer until Keith realizes it's his hearing coming back, and a bunch of things are being shouted into the comms. Somehow his headset is still working.

"...eith!... Keith, dammit! Respond!" The voice is commanding and somewhat panicked, and Keith recognizes it as Shiro.

"Oh, my god, is he okay?" Keith barely registers Hunk's voice, trembling and weak, "Like, look at his lion, oh god. No, no, no, Keith, no."

A breaking voice appears, and he knows it's Pidge if only for the slightly higher pitch. "Keith, you jerk, please say something."

And then there's Lance, screaming obscenities at the absolute top of his lungs, "Keith! Keith, I swear to god, if you die on me I will fucking end you, man. This isn't funny, fucking respond already, you prick! Keith!" How heartwarming.

"...ere..." He barely manages a soft sound, taking a shuddering breath that make a burning pain spread over his body before swallowing, his mouth almost painfully dry. " 'M here..."

All of the screaming escalates and it becomes a painful jumble until Shiro finally quiets everyone down.

"That's enough!  _Be quiet!_ " Keith would have thought his comms shorted out from all the noise with how quickly it stopped, until Shiro's talking again. "Look, he responded, so he's alive. Hunk, you and Pidge go take out the battleship's ion canon, I'll attack its exterior to distract it. It's the last one, so let's do this quickly. Lance, get Keith out of there and back to the castle, Coran's already getting a pod ready. Lance!" There's a very soft sound of affirmation that Keith barely hears. 

He tries to do inventory, and he can't tell if that's Red spinning through space or just his vision warping the room so that it's doing laps around his head. He groans, moving his left arm close to his side and tries to push himself up. Probably something he shouldn't have done because suddenly it feels like everything's on fire. Again, he loses track over whether the screaming is him or his teammates, and darkness tries to rob him of his freedom once more. Keith barely escapes its clutches, and now he's hyper aware of every damaged nerve in his body screaming pain signals at his brain. His head, his neck, his right side, his rib cage. He's taking rapid shallow breaths because that's all he can manage. He manages to see something red covering him and the floor, and thinks it's his suit. But then again, his suit is mostly white with only red accents. Not that much red, and it's a constant, unlike the stuttering, blinking light of the alarm. 

He moves his left hand to touch it, feels warmth and moisture through the gloves, feels a dull ache. Finally his depth perception clicks back into place, and that silver thing he'd thought was behind him is actually not behind him. It's in him, partly, gouging out a huge chunk of his left side as a pipe had broken off and pierced the floor. It had barely missed his large intestine, shallow enough that the strip of organ lay untouched, deep enough that he could see it through the torn and burned flesh.

Keith turned his head and retched any and all food goo he'd eaten less than half an hour ago. 

***

"... th... Ke... eith... Keith!...  _Keith!_ " 

He groaned, barely audible, causing a noise above him that sounded like a relief. It was very short lived. Something was touching him, and he yelped to make them let go.

"..do...n't..."

"Keith..?" He felt something thin on his face, maybe a hand. His eyes fluttered open, just enough that he could see again. He turned his head just so and saw the face of Lance crouching over him. At least, he thought it was Lance.

"L.. an..." Keith tried to say his name but found his voice failing him.

"Easy there, buddy. I'm here, I'm here." The blue paladin's voice sounded urgent and far away, like he was floating a hundred feet in the air. "We're gunna get you out of here, okay? You have to stay awake though."

"Can...'t... move." He struggled to warn the other of his injury, and he thought he could make out the blue paladin's brow furrowing. "Side... bad..."

"Side bad? What're you- _Dios mio..._ " The other looked further down Keith's body and his eyes shot wide, pupils shrinking into themselves. "..N-Nah, you're fine." He turned back to Keith, who was now breathing inconsistently, taking a couple shuddering breaths and having to wait a few moments before he could take another. "You're gunna be fine! Come on, Blue's waiting. I got you."

Keith couldn't feel his body being lifted or his feet put on the ground, but somehow they held. The change in position made him want to vomit before he remembered he'd already done that earlier. He could feel a hand insistently pressed to his side where the pipe had scathed him, and he thought he heard Lance mumbling things to himself or to him. Maybe he was talking normally and Keith just couldn't hear it. 

"...-eith? Stay wi-...me, buddy. Talk... -me."

"About... what...?" He gasped out.

"What color... -ocean?" Lance's voice was weak, or maybe that was all the blood Keith had lost. 

The ocean? Lance likes the ocean. He often spoke about it with Hunk, or pictures a city on the beach during meditation. "...lue..."

"Okay, good... What abo-... grass?"

Grass was green, right? Keith could barely remember what colors looked like anymore, let alone what was which one. "...reen..."

"A-Apples? You had... -ples, right?' Lance sounds like he's farther away, and Keith feels himself pulled into him, resting on something as the pressure on his side increases.

"Apples... ser... -usly?" His voice sounds like it's coming from a speaker overhead, detached and static-y.

"Just... just tell m.. -hat color apple... -re" He could feel himself being brought close to the other and lowered down, and he was thankful to take his own unbearable weight off his feet.

"...red."

"Shiro? Y-Yeah I got him, but.. I... No, Sh-Shiro he's not- I'm going to the castle." Keith looked up and through the cracked screen of his visor, he could see Lance's face, ashen and distraught and panicked. It was so unlike him. He was always cracking jokes and making someone want to throw the nearest object in his direction, his laugh echoing off the metallic walks as he escaped when someone did, making the castle feel a little more like home. He wanted to see that Lance right now. He didn't like this Lance.

"..ance..."

"Bananas," the blue pilot said, "tell me what color... -anas are."

"Lance." It's the first time his voice is coherent, and anything above a hoarse whisper. "I.. got... -say som... thing.."

"Oh no, no no no _no no_ , say it later, you'll be fine, you'll be fine. You're gunna be okay." Lance's pupils were blown wide and the hand that wasn't pressing to Keith's gaping wound reached up and brushed through his bangs. Keith doesn't remember when his helmet was taken off. He doesn't even think about how Lance isn't even piloting his lion or how he got off his own lion. "Don't you dare die on me, Keith. I meant it earlier. If you die on me, I'll end you, so stay awake."

"..can't... so... Lance. Please..." There's enough urgency in his voice that Lance bites his lip, makes a soft sound and nods. Keith takes in a very hollow breath, "You... are a great pi...lot. Don't doubt... -that, ever." Lance is nodding and Keith can't tell if Lance is tearing up or if his vision is just failing him again. He's going to assume both. "Best... pilot. Besides me... -course..."

Lance gave a weak laugh but the smile was small and quivering, fingers were brushing through his bangs again. "Dunno what you're talking about, mullet. I'm... definitely the better pilot."

"In... -ur dreams." Keith gave a wet cough and the smile Lance had dropped out of existence.

"Keith?" Lance said worriedly, cupping his face.

"..m fine. You said so..." Keith continued after a second.

"Yeah, yeah I did. You're fine. It's okay. We're in the hanger now so I'm gunna bring you out, alright?"

"Lan... ce..." Keith barely managed a whisper as Lance stood. He couldn't feel any part of his body anymore, dangling in the other paladin's arms like half-boiled spaghetti. He was struggling to stay awake but it was a heavy burden, and quickly becoming a losing battle. He was running out of time.

"Yeah, buddy. I'm here."

"L...ve... -ou..." He barely heard Lance give a soft and desperate "what?" before darkness closed in again.

***

Everything speeds up.

The next thing he realizes before even registering that he's awake is a rush of warm air and the feeling of falling through space. The feeling is quickly righted as something solid catches his shoulders, stabilizing his shaky fawn legs. The air feels dense and soupy, making sounds indiscernible for now, and his eyelids feel like they're taped shut. He reaches one hand up and rubs at them with weak, trembling fingers before he manages to get one open. Everything's a blur and whatever is holding him is a mess of brown and green. He blinks that eye a few times to clear it as he tries to free his other one. He can see the other's mouth moving, and it takes a second before he registers the voice with it.

"...-eith, dios mio, you _fucker_ , you're alive. Holy shit you're alive and not dead.  _Jesus_  you gave us all _heart attacks._ "

Keith is still silent, and finally recognizes the swirl of colors as they come into focus, organizing themselves into the incredible relieved, worried, and  _exhausted_ face of Lance.

"...Lance," he manages to croak out, and is quietly pleased his mouth is no longer a desert or on fire.

"Yes, Keith, it's me, the one and only Lance McClain. Your knight in shining armor." The words sound friendly but forced, the smile pinched higher than it naturally should be with how tired Lance looks as he helps Keith sit on small stairs surrounding the med bay.

"Don't even start," Keith managed to reply, putting his head into a hand as Lance ran his hand over his back, picking up a rhythm after a hesitant moment. "How long was I out?"

"Couple days," Lance said, and Keith knew there was more behind those two words than that. "You were pretty bad. I... We almost didn't get you in the pod in time."

Keith dropped his hand, hanging wearily over his knees as his head filled with warped air. Though he admitted it was nicer than the pain from earlier. "Well, you must have, because I'm here now. And I certainly don't feel dead."

"Yeah, I know. Red's doing alright too, in case you were gunna ask." Lance's hand stilled and moved in front of him, brushed back one of his side bangs so he could look at Keith's face. "Coran, Pidge, and Hunk have been working round the clock to fix her up. She almost looks better than you."

Keith huffed a laugh, and didn't brush off the other's hand, surprising both of them by leaning into it for a bit of support, "Don't lie to me, Lance. I know you haven't left this room."

Lance was quiet for maybe half a second before stuttering a response, "A-And how would you know, Mr Human-Toast? You've been in a coma for two days!" He pouted at Keith, brow furrowed in a faux scowl that made Keith chuckle. 

"Because I know you, that's why."

"Oh yeah? Well-"

" _Keith!_ "

Another sound came crashing into him, literally. The smaller twig arms of Pidge wrapped around his midsection and knocked him back a bit as they buried their face into his chest. "Woah, Pidge-! I, um, hey there." He placed his hands gently on the smaller paladin's shoulders, and heard what suspiciously sounded like a string of affectionate and angry curses, muffled by his own body.

"I'll, uh, call everyone in to let them know you woke up." Lance recovers his hand and pushes himself to stand, walking over to the small announcement system on the wall for watchers to announce on the castle speakers that a patient has awoken. 

It's a matter of minutes before the rest of the castle occupants come charging in and surround him. Hunk gives him a tight squeeze that wrenches him back to his feet, red-ringed eyes refreshing themselves with tears. Coran is in a similar state, professing his worries and praise for jumping in the nick of time to spare what would surely have been a deadly blow dealt to the castle. Allura expressed her thanks and praise for saving the castle before going on her own, lengthy tirade. Shiro gives him a light cuff on the head with a few stern words, but his voice is laced with relief as he explains in a more coherent way than Coran what actually happened. 

"Oookay, well, I think Keithy boy here needs to eat something and then get to bed," Lance interjected, stepping up beside Keith. He'd been awfully quiet, hovering at the back of the pack until just now.

"Right, get him some food and then make sure he gets to sleep, Lance," Shiro said tiredly. "Actually, I think it's a good idea that we all get some sleep, now that we know Keith is alright." A chorus of agreement and everyone was filtering off to bed. 

Lance turned to Keith, who was still on his feet but leaning against a pillar, blinking tiredly, "Alright you, time for some food goo. Hunk tried making a sushi flavored one, just for you."

"I just got out of a cryopod and you're already trying to poison me?" Keith gave a light laugh, and heaved himself off the pillar. He pushed a little too hard though, and lost his balance. He would have fallen face-first onto the steps if Lance hadn't rushed to catch him, hoisting him back up on his shoulder with a supportive hand to the chest. 

"Yeah, you get to be the taste tester for his latest batch if you don't pass out before we get there," Lance chuckles back, but it hits Keith's ear wrong. It sounded almost mechanical; the way it echoes in the room was painfully unnatural.

"Please, I think I'll be fine with you here." That seems to change the air around them; makes Lance soften his smile to something more sincere and natural as he hooks Keith's arm over his shoulder and wraps his own around the dark-haired male's waist.

***

"Dude, you alright? You've hardly said a word." Keith scooped another spoonful of goo into his mouth, blinking worriedly at the brunet sitting next to him. His words seemed to have started the other out of whatever had his brow creased and jutting out from his forehead.

Lance turned to look at him and Keith would say he saw something bad in those swirling blue eyes if the glassy look didn't put his own reflection back at him, "What? Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. Just tired."

"Yeah, I can see that," Keith comments after swallowing, eyeing the other. "Did you even sleep after you got back?"

Lance averted his eyes at that, pulling his smile wider than before as he waved a hand dismissively, "Pshh, yeah. Slept like a baby, hot-shot. Probably better than you."

"The bags under your eyes say otherwise," the red paladin says, popping another spoonful in his mouth. He's almost done now, just a few more to go and then he'd allowed to sleep.

"Wow, alright, first of all,  _rude_ ," Lance starts, and yeah, he sounds a little more like his normal self as he rolls his eyes. "You can't just point out a dude's eye-bags. It's hella rude."

"Did you seriously just use the word 'hella' unironically?"

"Everything I do is completely unironic and genuine!"

"Oh yeah, definitely," Now it's Keith's turn to roll his eyes as he pops the last scoop of goo into his mouth and swallows. He drops the spoon into the dish lazily, leaning back as Lance gets up and takes it to the sink. "Tastes more like lobster than sushi."

"Ew," was all Lance said, letting silence fill the space between them as he helped Keith back to his room. The walk was silent and eerie, and when they got to Keith's room, he was more than happy to see his disheveled sheets and various trinkets scattered over the shelves. Lance seemed to hesitate when Keith slipped from his hold, and the dark-haired male found himself looking back at him.

"You can come in, if you want. Sorry it's kind of messy." Lance looked relieved at his words and ducked inside, moving to sit on the bed with a heavy sound. Keith moved towards the bathroom, "I'm gunna shower before I sleep. I feel like a Grimn'g." The comment about the slimey tree people from last week's mission made Lance snort, and Keith took that as a sign that he'd be okay for a bit while he took care of himself, grabbing a clean shirt and boxers.

The shower was short and cool, because something about intense heat on his skin just didn't feel comfortable at the moment. He toweled off his hair and, despite Lance's claims that he never did anything to his messy hair, ran a comb through it quickly before ducking out of the bathroom. He found Lance sitting curled on his bed, back against the wall and his knees tucked in, with his arms and chin resting on them. His eyes were glassy, and Keith hoped it was just from the shadow of light across his features.

"Lance?" He said, and the other started, jumping up and slamming his head into the small bed's ceiling.

" _Hijo de puta, que duele!_ " The brunet turned to scowl at him when Keith laughed, turning away as the ravenet sat down beside him.

"You alright?" Keith asked, trying to catch the other's eye to no avail. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"I wasn't  _scared_ ," Lance hissed, but there was no real bite to it. "You just... -surprised me, is all!"

"Oh, what's this?" Keith teased, leaning back, "Lance McClain, my 'knight in shining armor', caught of his guard?"

"Oh fuck you, man!" Lance snapped, turning to Keith. But there was a smile on his face, and it helped to shine a bit of light into his vacant gaze. 

"I'm sure you would, if I was a girl," Keith laughed.

Lance rolled his eyes, extending one leg as he waved a hand around lazily, "I'd fuck you even if you weren't a girl."

Silence. Keith gave him a few ticks before the light-bulb seemed to go off and suddenly Lance was sputtering and waving his hands around and wow, red is a  _really good compliment_ to that olive skin and freckles he's got. "I-I-I mean, I just-! You don't have to be a girl, i-is what I meant! Like, b-boys and girls are both fine! Not you in particular, but boys and girls, yes, both of those are good."

Keith was laughing so hard he'd thought he'd break a rib, again. Lance was flustered and settled for curling up into a ball and throwing his hoodie over his head to hide the evidence of his mistake that still stained the back of his neck and dipped the tips of his ears.

"Why don't you tell me how you really feel, Lance?" He said when he finally regained a proper method of breathing, but all he got was a whining mumble. He gave the other a nudge, "Dude, it's fine, really. Come on, come out or I'm kicking you out of my room."

"At least that would be better than having to look you in the eye after saying that."

"Or you could prove you have the balls and confidence to look me in the eye after saying that."

He heard a mumbled 'Low blow, Keith. Low blow.' Before Lance tipped his head up enough so Keith could see his eyes, which were, in fact, still directed pointedly away from him. It was good enough for Keith, who grunted as he relaxed against the wall, the cool temperature reaching past his clothes for the last remnants of his wounds that were still evident on his body. Lance looked over at the sound, sitting up a little straighter which made his hood fall back. Keith could still see traces of blush all over the other, and it looked pretty nice if it weren't for the concern progressively kneading its way into his forehead.

"Are you okay?" Lance asked quietly.

Keith shrugged, nonchalant in a way that he hoped Lance would believe him, "Yeah, I mean, you said I would be and I am. So yeah."

"Oh," Lance said, lowering his head a bit as his eyes seemed to darken further, "Yeah, I did tell you you'd be fine, didn't I? And I was right, as per usual."

"Yup, thanks for not lying to me." He didn't get an answer, so he closed his eyes and tried to relax, listening to the other body breathe beside him. 

"...Keith?" Keith gave a soft hum of recognition for the other to continue, "Ah, just, you were trying to tell me something, before you passed out." Keith opened his eyes and looked over. Lance was looking back.

Keith furrowed his brow a bit, trying to remember. After the ion blast, everything was very, very fuzzy and uncoordinated. He searched the fragments in his mind, and after a few seconds his eyebrow rose as he realized what the other was talking about. "Yeah, I was."

Lance nibbled the corner of his bottom lip, and from what Keith could tell from the raw and chapped skin there, he'd been doing that quite a lot lately. "Well... what was it? You were kind of gargling on your own blood by the last few words."

"Oh, hm."

"Is that all you have to say?" 

"No, I'm... trying to think of how to word it." Lance fell silent at that, watching Keith who's gaze turned back to the ceiling. ' _I love you_ ' was what he'd been trying to say, but he only remembered saying something about dreams before he clocked out. "It was, uh, a personal thing."

"You don't have to actually share, dude. I was just curious." Something in Lance's voice sounded sad and removed, and it spiked something fiercely protective in Keith to give him enough courage to say those three words.

"I love you."

"What?"

"It was 'I love you'," Keith repeated, blinking slowly. When there was only silence, he twisted his head to look beside him and let an absolutely delicious smirk full his face. Lance had gone from a lovely light coffee brown to the darkest shade of red velvet cake, sweet and absolutely beside himself with glee and surprise. He opened his mouth, only to make somewhat of an undignified gargling noise that had Keith bursting out laughing.

That was all Lance needed to regain enough composure to start yelling at him about how he couldn't just say things like that with a straight face, grabbing the singular pillow and beating on a still-cackling Keith. Neither had any idea what was going on or how they ended up tangled in the sheets, panting and red-faced. But whether that was from their impromptu wrestling match or how they were so close that their breaths mingled and Keith could count the freckles on Lance's flushed cheeks, well, neither could really tell. They both started laughing softly and collapsed next to each other, smiles still adorning their faces.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Jennifer Damiano's "If The World Should End"
> 
> If you want to tag/show me in anything relating to this story, my tumblr is Sasaina-Ai.tumblr.com


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